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To extend Ethernet to remote location, are Powerline extenders or Mesh systems better?

I am trying to get Ethernet into a listening room that is not prewired, and it is not practical to run the hard cable through the old house into that room. I am planning to use a new music streamer that requires Ethernet connection (no wifi).

For hifi purposes, for passing the music signal, not just for computer equipment, are ethernet over powerline units better, or are wifi mesh router systems (which bring an ethernet port into a room using wireless transfer between the mesh devices) better?

For Ethernet over powerlines, I am worried about contaminating the power lines feeding the stereo preamplifier/amplifier, I don’t know if hifi power conditioners will filter out that super high frequency noise well enough.

For wifi mesh, it seems that the wireless handling of the music signal to feed the remote Ethernet port might somehow degrade the sound and introduce other problems that a connected wireline would avoid.

I am not a person that understands these technologies deeply, so I would value perspectives from others here who are users and who may be technically more qualified to understand this stuff.

troidelover1499

Showing 2 responses by panzrwagn

panzrwagn's avatar
panzrwagn
604 posts
 

Almost 30 years experience as a network architect for Very Large Network company.

Avoid network extenders - they do extend range but at a cost of 50% of your throughput. As you add devices, this catches up with you and performance and reliability degrades rapidly.

Mesh routers are vastly preferable as they seek the hub with the strongest signal and lightest load.

As Wifi 6 is adopted, its improved parallelism will support more devices and higher throughputs

The best mesh implementations use a wired backhaul to the main hub and 3 wireless channels (not 3 ip subnets).  

In the context of a domestic LAN, issues of jitter and latency are not meaningful, although packet drops are sumptomatic of range and load limits, as well as defective infrastructure, bad cables or connectors.

In short, nothing an extender does ultimately helps SQ. Everything a mesh router and Wi-Fi 6 do can help it. 

 

panzrwagn's avatar
panzrwagn
604 posts
 

All ethernet extenders, wired or wireless will reduce your available bandwidth by half. Not a point of discussion, it's just inherent in how they work - there's no free lunch. Mesh Networks do not exhibit that characteristic, and those with a dedicated backhaul channel work best of all. Use WiFi 6, if possible, which supports parallel network streams, as opposed to time-slicing a single stream like all previous ethernet, wired and Wi-Fi. Luckily, digital audio is very undemanding network load, with CD quality requiring less than 1Mbit/sec, and 24-bit 192K needing under 5 mBits/sec. 

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